Chapter 8 – Stress and coping

the unfair or unequal treatment of individuals or groups based on ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, disability, being from an Indigenous group.

a negative attitude or belief that someone holds about others who are perceived to be different.

A stimulus or event that is external to the person that triggers a stress response. Stress can also be a physiology response of the body to a stressful event or situation. Stress can be the relationship between the stressor and the person’s perceived ability to cope with it.

The body’s stable internal (resting) environment.

A three-stage model (alarm, resistance and exhaustion) to explain how the body responds physiologically to stress.

The cumulation of the wear and tear on the body because of exposure to chronic stress.

The initial stage in the cognitive evaluation of a stressor, that is used to judge whether the stressor is irrelevant, benign and positive, a threat and harmful or a threat and a challenge.

After primary appraisal, secondary appraisal involves the assessment of perceived ability to cope and available resources.

How people generally respond to stressful events,

Directly dealing with the stressful event.

Trying to ignore the stressful event by engaging in other activities.

Taking direct action to deal with the stressors by focusing on the stressor.

Trying to change the emotional response to stress, rather than dealing with the problem directly.

Help received from others to buffer stress that can be emotional, instrumental, informational, appraisal and companionship.

How psychological factors, the immune system and nervous system are interrelated and exert impacts on immune status.

The extent to which an individual’s physiological systems respond to stress.

Changes to heart rate and blood pressure because of stress.

Subtle day to say discriminatory events that can be intentional or unintentional.

Associated with individuals who are competitive, ambitious, perfectionists and time driven.

Associated with individuals who have low levels of competitiveness, relaxed and easy going.

People who are resilient to stress due to commitment, control and challenge.

People who have a general expectation that good things will happen in the future, they docus on positive outcomes.

Intentionally hiding some aspect of identity, often to avoid discrimination or stigma.

Laws, systems, organisational in society unfairly disadvantage minoritised groups.

The individual believes and feels ashamed and accepts the negative beliefs that others express about some aspect of their identity.